Related Tags:

A former N.A.A.C.P. board member says some chapter presidents who don’t support gay marriages were caught off-guard by the organization’s decision to back President Obama on gay marriage. “They are not happy,” the former board member told ReddingNewsReview. “They have really been caught like a deer in headlights. It caught them off-guard and they don’t know how to respond. They don’t know how to articulate what happened to members. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to say and there has been no communication from Baltimore. We don’t support this and we haven’t had a chance to talk about it … it is the edict coming down from Baltimore.”

The 64-member board of the N.A.A.C.P. voted on Saturday to support gay marriage during a quarterly board meeting in Miami. The vote came a few days after Obama said he supports same-sex marriage.

“I guarantee that there were not 64 board members there. I have never seen a board meeting where all 64 were present, and if they had gotten wind of the conversation there would have been more conversation.”

The former board member feels that the organization’s Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond’s decision to support Obama “birthed the conversation” on the issue. “The issue is before us,” Bond told CNN host Don Lemon. “President Obama brought it to the fore when he spoke about it, in effect giving people permission to talk about it and to think about I think in ways they had not. And I think for our board, we were saying to each other, ‘If the president can do this, then perhaps we can do it too.’”

The former board member predicted that the current board’s vote would be an issue at the upcoming convention in Houston this July. “It’s a kindling fire keg. It’s not going to go un-dealt with at the national convention,” the source said. To hear more on the topic, visit www.robreddingnewsreview.com